Dream. Lead. Succeed. A Dffierent Conversation About Manifesting Your Dreams, Leadership and Success

I want us to think about what it is you want, right? To think about what you have been told that you can actually have and what you've been conditioned to believe that what you can actually have. And I want you to go on this journey with me to go beyond that, okay? And this journey starts off with me and my story. And the story starts off— it was New Year's Eve in 2010. And I was living in Miami at the time, and I had plans to go out and party with my friends in Miami to bring in the new year. And I made a very, very hasty decision not to go out and party, but instead to actually stay at home and to analyze my life. That forever changed the entire trajectory of my life, and it's the reason why I'm actually before you today. What I did was I got up at 6:30 that morning, and I began to look at what went right in my life. Why did I pass the interview? That last year, and I began to write everything down. That was a very tough year for me, and so I didn't have a whole lot to write down at this time. And then I began to look at, okay, what did I fail at? And I had a much, much longer list. And I got really real and very honest with myself, and I began to ask myself what went wrong. I began to look at every single one of my failures, and I began to take full responsibility. And really, the short end of it was that I was in love with a for the very first time. Anybody ever been in love before? Okay, good. So you guys know what I'm talking about, right? And I was also in business for the very first time as well, so as a first-time entrepreneur. Mixing both of those together really stifled any real chance of success because, you know, at the time I had no idea what it meant to actually run a business. I only knew how to be a lawyer, right? And so then what I did was I began to look at my mindset because I had started a spiritual path and be on the path of personal development And I began to actually see that what was happening in my life is because what I was always believing about myself, right? And I began to write down all my limiting beliefs. I'm not good enough. I'm not this. I'm not smart, blah, blah, blah, blah. And when I was done, I got down on all fours and prayed the most reverent prayer I've ever prayed in my life, asking God, the universe, to actually help me to let go of these limiting beliefs about myself. You see, I knew at that time that what was actually happening before me, what I was seeing, was because what I was believing about myself, right? And then I began to start forgiving myself because it's very, very important to let go, to practice self-forgiveness. And when I was done, it was time to look to the future. I got a journal and it had the word "imagine" on it, and I began to write. And I began to write down everything I wanted to be, that I wanted to do, and what I wanted to have. In 2011. I started writing with no limits, y'all. It was just really crazy. I just kept writing and writing and writing. In fact, I believe I was writing that day the way Elon Musk must think, like, on a daily basis for him to create what he's created, right? I was just writing, like, the most outrageous things. But nothing in my journal, though, said that I wanted to leave Miami, all right? But unbeknownst to me, I had no idea what I was actually doing. I then began to visualize myself actually having everything I wrote down. I began to say mantras about it, affirmations, I am this, I am that, and when midnight came, I took one sip of a glass of champagne and I passed out. I was exhausted because I had been doing this since 6 o'clock, since 6:30 that morning, right? Unbeknownst to me, like I said, I had no idea what I had just done, but I had just called forth for me a different life than what I was told I was actually meant to have. 3 days later, everything in my life changed. I began to start having these bombardment, being bombarded with all these signs about Paris, about France, about French culture, French this and French that. It was very bizarre because I wasn't your typical American that's just like, "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs," about anything about Paris where it says "Made in France" on it, right? And I'm actually West African, Liberian, and that isn't a Francophone country, so it made no sense whatsoever as to why I couldn't take two steps in Miami, Spanish-speaking Miami, where everybody speaks Spanish, where I just— it was all French, French, French, right? And so I was like, what is going on? So what did I do? I got on a plane in February and I went to Paris to see, okay, God, universe, what's going on here, right? And I went there hoping I would get some answers, and I got absolutely nothing. What I got was really, really sick because it was so freaking cold in Miami— I mean, in Paris. And I was dressed there looking like this, pretty much in Miami clothing, right? So I was there sick for 4 days. I didn't really get anything. And then what I did was I actually went, took the train, and then I went to the French Riviera. It's my very first time there, and I went to every single city on the Riviera except Saint-Tropez. When I got to Monaco, I had the first experience of déjà vu where everything and everyone looked familiar, but it's my first time ever stepping foot in the French Riviera. We're in Monaco, right? And I remember coming over a water fountain and I came across these two fishes, right? Because I'm a Pisces. Anybody a Pisces in the house? No Pisces? What are your signs? What are you? I'm a Virgo ascendant. No Pisces? Oh, y'all are missing out. Oh, there we go, there we go. So I came across these two water— these water fountain that was in the symbol of the Pisces, right? And I finally heard something. I heard, Wani, your life is in transition from a lawyer to a writer. I said, what? And I heard my heart speak to me again. Your life is in transition from a lawyer to a writer. And I was like, are you freaking kidding me? You mean to tell me I just spent thousands of dollars to fly all the way from Miami to Paris just to hear this and to get sick just to hear this? You mean to tell me like I couldn't be told this back in Miami, like preferably on the beach? I was so disappointed. I mean, it was like the biggest blur, right? So what did I do? I was like, you know, whatever. I got the message. I came, I sought things out. I went back to Miami thinking that'll be the end of it, right? The end of the signs, but it actually wasn't. The signs actually quadrupled. It was like every single day for an entire year, it was Paris, Paris, Paris, Paris, Paris, Paris. One day was in August, and it was one of these days where it was the most beautiful day in Miami. There was not a single cloud in the sky, completely blue, sun was out. It was a day where everybody in the city was probably at the beach, on the water someplace, on a boat or on a yacht, and I was stuck inside of an office building looking at legal contracts, hating my life doing this, right? And I was just sitting there just having like the biggest FOMO and just like really like being like kind of down, like I was hating what I was doing, quite honestly with you. And I began to look out the window, right? And I was in like a mid-high-rise building and I began to see yellow butterflies actually flying. And I thought to myself, this is kind of peculiar. I've never seen butterflies fly quite this high. I didn't even know that they actually could. And the minute I said that, I then heard my heart speak to me again. I heard, move. I went like this, and I heard, "Move to Paris." I just said yes. I was by myself in this building, in this office building, and within like, I don't know, a couple of months, in October, I literally sold my apartment in Miami, I sold my car, I gave away all my things through different charities. I only kept my legal files because by law you have to keep files for 7 years for tax purposes. And I moved to Paris. I moved to Paris not knowing a single person. I didn't know not one word of French. I had no plan A, B, C, D whatsoever as to what the hell I was going to do there. I just went. Unbeknownst to me, what I was doing was I was actually stepping into a dream fulfilled life. Before I left Miami though, my hopelessly romantic friends all told me this: Oh my God, you're going to Paris to meet the love of your life, and they all began to start planning my wedding, picking colors and everything. I then went to see my spiritual teacher Patrick from England, and he said to me, Wani Iris Manly Iris Manly, you're going on a karma cleansing mission, which means I'm about to face my stuff, right? But it was the last person I actually went to see before I took the plane whose words got my attention the most. She said to me, "You know, Wani, you're going to Paris, yeah, to meet the one, but it has nothing to do with the man. You're going to Paris to actually meet you, the real you, the soul that's walking on your path." When she said those words to me, I knew that I wasn't just changing countries, that I was changing identities. More importantly, I knew that I was actually trading. I was trading one life for another life. I was trading an ordinary life for an extraordinary life. And so I left. And so what I was also stepping into was actually a dream manifested life. You see, when I was 6 years old, right here, I said two things. I said that I wanted to live between Europe and the United States of America, and that I wanted to have 3 homes and live around the world season like that. Everybody laughed at me, right? The adults, my family, because after all, what does a 6-year-old know to be saying these things, right? Well, I can tell you that 6-year-old girl grew up to be a woman who actually ended up being a 5-time Americanized spouse. She's lived in 3 different European countries. She's still working on the 3 homes part, But she's doing exactly what she went out to do, and she's living her definition of success. I start this story, this conversation today, not to brag about me and my life, because my time here before you is not about me. It is about you living the dream that you want to live. And you know, when I was preparing for this talk today, I said, what can I share? And I think in order for you to actually have a very different life, to be living a very dream fulfilled life, we have to have a conversation about leadership, about dreaming, and about what it actually means to succeed. And so when I was actually preparing for it, we just— it's January 27th, right? We just finished Martin Luther King holiday. And I have a really good friend of mine from Miami in Berlin where every year for 22 years since I have known him, Carl always reads MLK's I Have a Dream speech every year on MLK holiday. And he posts this on Facebook. I know you guys are all young, y'all. This is for old people here, right? So, but Carl always puts, he always reads the speech, the physical copy, and he listens to the speech, and then he also puts his reflection about MLK. I don't do that. Obviously, I've listened to it before. You have to live under a rock if you've never heard the speech before, right? But for some reason, I felt pulled to do it this year. And as I listened to the speech, I began to really think really hard about how every single one of us have a dream. Every single one of us actually want to be successful, yet very, very few people are actually living a dream-fulfilled life. Very few people, or most people, are actually living a very sad sin of life, right? They never really get to achieve their dreams. And I'm telling you here, and I want to talk to you because I don't want that to be you, because you that are actually sitting here have everything available to you, every possibility for you to actually to achieve your dreams. And I mean that sincerely, because having lived in 5 different countries and traveling all over the world I see it a lot. And you know, for some reason I'm in Paris, right, and I seem to just always attract French people that have never been to the United States before, which I find quite odd. But more so, French people, Europeans are very, very like into our politics, right? And for some reason I seem to be like the de facto Secretary of State in France because I'm always asked about the crazy things our government's doing, right? Like when we elected Donald Trump as president, For 4 years, everywhere I went, if people could smell that I was an American, oh my God, what'd you guys do? How in the world could you elect Donald Trump as president? How in the hell do you go from Barack Obama to Donald Trump? Everywhere I went. And you know what? I had the same answer for everyone, and every time I said this, everybody was quiet. My response was, the best thing about America is that Donald Trump can be president. And the worst thing about America is Donald Trump can be president. Meaning everything and anything is possible for American people. I don't care what color you are. I don't care what resources you have. It's available for you, okay? But for us to really actually have that, we have to start thinking about the way we approach our dreams because for some reason, Dream seems to be this thing that's kind of like very passive, right? And it seems to be this thing like where we're kind of like in a state where we're wishing and we're hoping. We all kind of grew up with, a lot of us in any way, grew up with fairy tales, right? Watching Disney, right? And believing in fairy tales, right? And so it's like we're kind of like in this state when it comes like, what do you want to do? What do you want to be when you grow up? And it's this thing that just kind of people just kind of put up in their head and just hope that is actually gonna happen someday, right? But here's the thing, that's not the case at all. Anybody heard of this book? It's called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. If you haven't read this book, I suggest you. It's a book by Bronnie Ware where she was actually interviewing elderly people who were about to die, and she was asking like what they regret from their life. And the number one regret was that I wish I had the courage to live the life life truth myself, not the life that other people expected me. In fact, she says this was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not even honored even half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to the choices they had made or had not made. Health brings a freedom very few realize until they no longer have it. Ronnie Ware. And so I went to UT in Austin, Texas. Anybody from Texas here? Where you from? Dallas. Awesome, awesome. I went to UT Austin and we never had this. I was just telling the ladies back there and I was like, and I was sitting here asking myself, gosh man, this is such an awesome thing that's what's going on here, right? And I was like, I wish I actually went to something like this. And so I was asking myself, okay, to come and talk to you, what did I wish if I was sitting in your shoes I would have heard from someone like myself today, right? And so one of the things was, it's like, we've got to have a different conversation about how you're going to actually manifest and create the life of your dreams so you're not living a very dream-deferred life, right? And so what I came up with was, how have I gotten to where I am for my success? And these are the different components I've actually come forth that I've actually created my life of me living my life of my dreams and not living a very dream-deferred life, right? The first thing is you got to decide. You've got to decide what it is that you actually want, and you have to decide that you get to have it, right? You see, for some reason, we see people having the things that we want and having the dreams or living the dreams that we actually want, but we don't see ourselves ourselves actually having it for us. For some reason, Oprah can be where she— what Oprah has done, Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, all these people, all these athletes, but we don't actually see ourselves actually having it. You have got to tell yourself right now, I want X, Y, and Z, and I am going to have it. I am deciding right now. It's a conscious decision in your mind, okay? It's way different from not just sitting there from wishing and hoping. And I'm telling you right now, hoping and wishing is not a strategy, okay? That's a strategy if you want to actually have a dream deferred life. If you live a dream fulfilled life, you've got to be very intentional about your dreams, right? Which is the next component. What do I mean by intentionality? I get, I get— meaning like we're not just sitting here hoping that if we're good enough, if we're smart enough, you know, and we're taking this like passive approach to our life that things are going to manifest for us, right? You see, most people are just living their lives on autopilot. They're living their lives, they're just simply existing, right? There's just like just kind of going through the motions. And I'm letting you know, and I get it, when you're, you know, when you're young and in college, you know, you're not thinking about dying, right? But I'm going to tell you, you don't have all day. Because here's the thing, there's only two guarantees in life, right? There's change, and at some point, or We're all going to check out of here. None of us going to get out of here alive. So I'm letting you know, you don't have all the time that you actually think. And I get it because, you know, when I was sitting here, she just walked too. I thought I was invincible. I thought I was actually immortal. But here's the thing, you do get older and you do run out of time. So you've got to be more intentional about what it is that you want, and you've got to start going after it like your life actually depends upon it, right? And so here's the thing, it's really easy, you know, it's really easy to kind of fall into this like trap of like it's gonna happen and just kind of like just expect to really happen, right? But here's a metaphor that someone actually shared with me that changed everything for me, and it was actually the step into the main character energy. And I was like, what is that? It is to understand that your life is a movie., but it's not just any old movie. It is your movie. You are the director of your, of your movie. You are the writer of it. You're the producer of it, and it's you that is actually starring in it. But see, what most of us are doing is like we're all acting like we're in like little 5-minute extras in our own movie, not realizing like this is it. This is not a dress rehearsal, right? So what do I mean by actually stepping into the main character energy? I mean for you to actually prioritize yourself. Because so many of us are actually playing quite small in life, right? We're walking around just like settling for crumbs. We have like the whole buffet of life that's available to us, right? Some of us, we are not so much a main character energy because we're afraid to speak up. And I get it, you guys, you're in the age of social media, of getting canceled. And so you can— I mean, if you sneeze these days, you're offending somebody, right? It's like you wake up in the morning, it's gonna be, "Who's offended today?" Right? And I'm telling you, I get that. But you have to start actually speaking up and speaking for what you want. You also have to stop being a wallflower, right? And I'm talking to the ladies in the room because I get it. You know, because we have such mixed messages from society that tells us to be ladylike and that it's better to be seen than to be heard. And so what ends up happening is like a lot of us become doormats. There'll be a wallflower, right? The squeaky wheel does get the grease. What I mean is actually speaking up about stepping into your main character energy. I mean actually seeing that you actually matter. It is not by accident you are actually here. You are not a fluke of the universe. You're very, very important, and you've got to start taking yourself as a very, very important person, okay? The next piece is that you've got to define what you want and why. You know, so many people don't know what they want. When I ask a lot of people, because I'm genuinely, I'm curious, I'm like, what do you want? And people just kind of like, they look down, they don't quite know, and then they actually start to kind of just say things that they want, right? And the sad fact of the matter is that most of us are wanting what our parents want us to have. We're living a life of what society is actually telling us what we should have, what we should want, right? And I get it because, you know, every day there's like, we all have social media now. We have Instagram and Snapchat and TikTok, and we're constantly being bombarded with telling us like what we should want, what we should want, what we should want, what we should want, right? And so we don't really quite know what we want, we don't really want it. I can tell you for me, do you think I actually wanted to be a lawyer? No. My father was Minister of Finance for Liberia when I was younger, so I grew up in a very diplomatic, household of international affairs, of heads of state, of hanging out, you know, our White House is called the Executive Mansion, like that was the pad that I grew up in. And so for me to say I was groomed to be a lawyer to make my parents proud is an understatement, okay? If I would have said to my parents, I want to be on stage and be a motivational speaker and inspire people, I want to be a writer, I would have never seen the light of day, especially my parents being African. Right, it wasn't what I really wanted, but I mean, and I had to grow into what I really wanted to do with my whole life. More than actually knowing what you want is you've got to know the why. Why do you want what you want? You've got to have a compelling reason. I'm going to tell you why, because you see, the things that you want, the dreams that you want to create, the life you actually want to have, it's not going to be where, okay, I declare it and bam, I'm here. No, it's not linear. The path to success is not linear. In fact, it's filled with so many upsets, failures, or perceived failures, right? Something like trials and tribulations. And the why is going to actually get you to the very top. Because when people see success, what do they see? They see the nice cars, they see the jewelry, the, the Louis Vuitton bags, whatever the case may be, whatever it is. But here's the thing, the why the hard work, the discipline, right? The dedication, the sacrifice. You need to actually have that wire dialed in, because if you don't have it dialed in, you'll never get up there. When things get tough, because it will be, you'll find yourself checking out, right? So it's very important to understand, to know what you want and why you actually want it, to make sure that it's actually for you. It's not because someone's telling you that I should do it, right? The next piece is a very important piece that nobody told me this, but I have to discover in my my own is that you've got to embody what you want right now, right? What do I mean by that? So here's the thing, so that we're all— it's 2024, right? We're in some New Year, New Vibe, right? And I believe it's what, January 12th is when like the national quitter's day, where by January 12th all the New Year's resolutions, all the intentions, it's all gone out the window, right? The gyms are back to normal capacity, right? It's not packed anymore, you know? Because here's the thing, The things that you want is going to require a very different version of yourself. So you have to ask yourself, the thing that I want, like, what is required of me, right? If you want to become a millionaire, if you want to become a CEO, do you think a CEO is going to be out partying and drinking every single night? No. One of my friends is actually married to the president of Adidas, or the old president. I'm telling them, they've been to Paris to visit me. Even him going to the bathroom is schedule. He doesn't eat any junk food whatsoever because he has to be operating at a very, very high level, right? Because you can't run that kind of a company with that level of revenue and prestige just like, you know, being all kind of like lackadaisical, right? And so you have to ask yourself, the thing that you want to have, the person you want to become, who do you need to be? What does the goal, what does the dream actually require of you, You see, I know a lot of us actually— anybody saw The Secret? Remember that movie? The thing I hate in this movie, you know what I mean? I hate this book because what it did was it made a lot of people think all you needed to do was just sit there, visualize, and it shows up. No, you gotta work. And so for you to actually have the thing you actually want, you gotta start asking yourself, number one, Who do I need to be, right? And even if you don't— you're gonna start asking yourself like, okay, what habit does a millionaire actually possess? Or a CEO, right? What is this person doing? What is he or she not doing? What are they reading every single day? What are they consuming? What are they not consuming, right? What are the habits? What are they speaking, right? I can tell you for me, I used to ask me— I always ask myself if I was actually playing at my highest level in life, because I wasn't up to my full potential, what's required of you, right? And so what I began to hear was, she goes to bed at 10 o'clock every day. Because I got into this whole thing when I got to Paris where, because I still have my law practice, and because I've got clients all over the place, I was like up all night, right? Because I've got clients in Paris, it's like 7 or 6 hours from Eastern time zone, I've got clients on the West Coast, right? And there was no boundaries on my timeline. I began to hear Wani Iris Manly. She speaks French fluently. I began to actually start taking French classes and really taking it seriously, right? Because my highest self was fluent in 3 languages, right? And so you start to start asking yourself in the being. When you start being who you are, then you start to take the aligned action that you actually need to take. And when you start actually taking the aligned action, then the having part actually shows up. Because here's the thing about actually creating what you want or your dreams is that you need to be taking the right action. And the right action is what is aligned with the person you need to become in order to actually have that, right? Embodiment, the representation or the expression of something in a tangible or visible form. Visualizing yourself being that person, right? And so for me, even to this day, that was like 7 years ago, at 10 o'clock every day there's an alarm on my clock. At 10 PM that says go to bed. And every time at that moment, if I'm working, everything just shuts down. I'm preparing to go to bed because my highest version of myself goes to bed at 10 o'clock every single day. I've been up for 7 years, right? Embodiment. What is the goal? What does the dream actually require from you? Okay, the last piece is this, and this is the greatest hack, which is gratitude and expectancy. You know, I flew here from Houston. My mom lives in Texas, in Houston, so I came from Houston. I flew from Houston to Philadelphia, then from Philadelphia I came to Harrisburg, and when I went to get my bags, the first thing that I saw was this big advertisement. It said, "More gratitude, less attitude," and I was like, "Yes!" I think it was for like a hospital or something like that, you know? And it's so true. You've got to be grateful for what you have, you know, because here's the thing we're so focused on, and this is what like our society does. Like we're so focused on what we don't have, what we can do, what we can't get, what's missing and what's wrong. And we're not even like looking at what we actually have. Listen, you're in America right now. You have a choice of like 10,000 channels, right? All the internet you want, organic this, organic that. You're gonna starve, but you can order whatever, whatever you want. I mean, it's like we're not even grateful for that. You've got to be more grateful for what you have. This way, here's what happens, right? The more you're grateful for, the more life gives you to be grateful about, right? The more you're grateful, it puts you in a positive energy, and like attracts like. What I love about gratitude is that it does two things, right? Gratitude puts you in a state of actually having versus not having. It's like, you know, you keep me sitting up and standing, or standing up and sitting at the exact same time. It puts you in a different vibration and also puts a vibration of expectancy. So be grateful. Be grateful for the things that you actually want that you don't have. I'm gonna also say something to you about jealousy. Be grateful for the people who have what you want, because even if you don't have it quite yet, I'll tell you why. The mere fact that you see someone actually having what you want means it's on its way to you. Because here's the thing, we live in a vibrational universe, right? A life of our universe is of actual frequency. And what actually happens is that the more you begin to like actually align with what you want, life actually puts it in your pathway. But what happens, like, we see people actually having what we want, I'd rather be happy for them and blessing them, we're jealous, we compare ourselves, right? And what happens? Our whole energy stinks, right? Because comparison is the thief of joy. Whenever you see somebody actually having something for you, bless them. Like, good for you, more please. You know what? It's on its way for me, right? Why? Because you're actually being what you actually— you're embodying what you want to become, or to— you're aligning with that. It's on its way to you, right? The other thing that gratitude does is that it puts you in a state of expectancy, right, of great things to actually come. Because for so many of us, we're actually like, we have these dreams and we have these things we actually want to do, and what actually happens, like, we're not expecting it to come true. It's crazy. It's like we want certain things and sometimes we're still wishing and hoping, and you know, that's a strategy, which is okay, but you know better now. But you gotta expect that, yeah, you have to expect it to actually come true. Why wouldn't it come true for you? I want you to understand something. The dreams you actually have inside of you, you're meant to actually have it. The mere fact that it actually is there, it means your soul wants you to actually have it, because it wouldn't be placed into your heart if it wasn't meant to be coming true. Let's talk about leadership. Let me ask you a question. When I mention the word, you see the word lead or leader, what do you think about? Yes. Somebody that put it back in. Awesome. Is there a specific person you guys think about when you think about leadership? Yes. Generals and my mom. Awesome. Anybody? Anybody think about— yes? Awesome. Anybody else? Yes, ma'am. Awesome. And you? Yes! Give her a hand! You're the first person to actually say yourself, you know, because every time I ask this question I get a— and you all did a fantastic job, nobody got it wrong, but every time I ask this question nobody has ever said myself. Yourself. But here's the thing, when I think about leadership, you know what I think about? I think about me. Now I don't know if it's because I'm self-absorbed because I grew up as an only child and that's what the case is, but no, not really. But it's honestly because you cannot lead other people if you can't lead yourself, right? And what we actually have in corporate America, not actually in corporate America, which is actually everywhere because As I just speak, I speak all over the world, we have a bunch of people that are in management positions trying to lead other people who don't know how to lead themselves, right? Everybody's quitting. And so you got to be able to lead yourself because here's the thing, your dreams is going to require you to actually to lead yourself, right? So let's talk about some self-leadership qualities. The number one thing is that you have got to have a strong Mindset. Mindset is completely everything, right? You got to have a mindset that is so fixated on your purpose and what you want to the point you're almost delusional, right? And for me, I have a very, very tough mindset, and I, I don't know where I got it from, but for me, if I want something, like, nothing's going to deter me. However, I was actually tested on this. You see, I, I talked about earlier how when I was 6 years old, how I said I wanted to live this global life of, you know, live between Europe and the United States, which I do now, have multiple homes, right, which also required me to actually have a man who wants the same things, right, and so when I was sharing my vision with my friends and my mom and my family, again, people laughed, right, everyone told me that I was crazy, that I would never find anybody who's living like that, that I was looking for for a unicorn, right? And for a while there, they were right. I mean, because like, you looked at my dating life, like, it was non-existent. And people that were meeting, they didn't have a freaking passport, right? Let alone to be living all over the world like I wanted to. People who had kids were like, Wani, do you think you can actually be able to globe trot the way you do, or the way you want to, at the time, with kids, you know? And I began to kind of like waver about it, right? And then about 14 years ago, I went on a trip to Thailand with my massage therapist in Miami and his wife. And what they did every summer was that they took their clients to Thailand for a month, and it was a combination of— you could actually take the first 2 weeks and actually get a Thai— learn how to do Thai massage, or you just go on the holiday part. And so I went on the holiday part when I joined a group. It was like 3 clients and plus 2 owners. And one of the girls was actually a yoga instructor for the 4 seasons, which meant we were going 5-star everything, right? Like, just totally all decked out. So the first time we were in Chiang Mai, the first week of the trip when I joined them, and then like the next part we started island hopping, right? First we get to the island part, 5-star hotel, right? Then we get to this island place called Koh Phangan. So Koh Phangan is like this like tiny island and it's only accessible by pretty much by by fishing boat, right? And so we get there, and I'm actually outnumbered by the group, and we ended up getting like this villa where all 5 of us got to sleep in, which is horrible. It was like not even A-star, right? I absolutely hate it. In fact, like, our villa had like a huge oak tree in the middle of it that was a living room. Literally, y'all, there was like bats that were actually flying all over throughout the thing. We had to sleep with our clothes on like that. That's me, right? And the mosquito net, because it was so hot, right? And I was so miserable because I'm gonna tell you, I'm bougie, I'm 5-star everything, right? But when you with the group, you gotta be— you gotta compromise, right? So we're there for 4 days and I'm just like completely so miserable and everyone's just kind of like having a great time except for me, right? And I'm asking myself, why am I here? Because I really believe I create my own reality and I've also I believe that life is always teaching me something, right? So I got to this place with a very forward, a sun yogi who discovered many years ago that we don't actually need to eat food and we can actually gaze at the sun a certain way and get all our nutrients from the sun, right? And so I took a couple of classes with him and I just wasn't quite vibing with that, right? But I did learn the 5 questions you should be asking yourself every day, which is what do you want? Why do you want it? From where you are right now to where you want to be. Are you on the right path? Will you consume me and people around you? A lot of, you know, and so on and so on, right? As I'm sitting there, I was like, okay, nah, no sign of it. Because he was quite— he was quite a big deal, right? He discovered Kriya Yoga. But I was sitting there, I was like, I'm not— this is like, why am I here in this dock, right? So one day I'm at the beach and, um, it's like I'm just sitting like kind of meditating, like just chilling time, because we were like there for like 4, you know, 4 or 5 days. And I'm sitting on the beach and like this fishing boat starts coming towards the shore, right? And I start to like look at it and it was like, it was like, uh, it was an interracial couple with like beautiful like 10-year-old daughter girl who had like really super curly hair, blonde. And the way the sun was hitting her, it was so radiant, she was glowing, right? And my attention was just fixated on this boat that was coming towards the shore where I was, right? And I was just drawn to the this little girl, and I just— something inside me said, that's it, I'm here for them. Like, there's something with this group, with this group, like, what is it, right? And so they came over, I said hello, and then that night we— the way the place was, it was like a wellness center, right? It was owned by this like very wealthy, uh, Scottish gentleman where you could kind of do like Reiki, energy healing, like those kind of places, right? Dinner was kind of like all family style, right? And I made sure I positioned myself next to his family to kind of get the 411. Well, it turns out this is a couple from Canada, from Toronto, who had actually came from Canada to the island and they never left. And this part of Thailand actually has a reputation, people coming to visit and never leaving. When they came, it was just the two of them., and they actually ended up having this baby girl that I was seeing, and the girl was actually homeschooled and was raised and been— they've been globetrotting with her. She spoke 6 languages, and I knew that was the universe telling me, you see, don't give up on your vision. You just have not met the people yet. But then, and then from that moment on, I began to meet people in my life who was actually living, had the exact same vision for their life, meaning they not only were living like all over the world, they also had children, and they were also educating their children like the way that I want to do mine, right? And the kids were absolutely fine. So you've got to have mental toughness. And to this day, I have never wavered. Now, even right now, all of my friends in France and most of my friends around the world, we're all living like that, right? And they actually have kids as well too. You gotta stick to like— you gotta have like your tough minds because because you will be tested on it again and again, like I actually was. The next piece is like, you've got to be self-aware. You cannot lead yourself or lead anybody else if you're not aware of who you actually are. And everybody's telling you, be yourself, but here's the thing, nobody has a freaking clue as to who they are, right? You've got to know what triggers you. You've got to know like what your emotional triggers are. You got to know like what's your dominant energy field, right? Because guess what? Everyone has a past, right? Everybody has like the way they grew up. Some of us, like, our parents were never around, so we'll walk around feeling wounded. And sometimes we get into relationships with people, we get very attached, right? Or we're afraid to get into relationships, right? So you need to know like who you are, what do you like and what do you don't like and why, right? What triggers you, like what sets you up and how do you respond in certain situations? What are your strengths and what are your weaknesses? And one of the best ways I actually— to actually to get to know myself is you got to observe yourself, right? Meaning put the phone down for a bit, just sit with yourself and breathe, right? Turn the notifications off, meditate, right? Join us for a second and just ask yourself, who am I? And I promise you, here's the thing, life will always be responding to you. You're not meant to just be living in this life like completely unguided without knowing anything. But you gotta start asking the right questions, right? And that's how you got to become aware of who you are and what your triggers are, right? You've got to have emotional intelligence, right? Empathy, compassion. You gotta be able to like listen to yourself and listen to other people, okay? The next piece is like, you can't talk about leadership if you don't have a belief. You've got to believe in yourself. Yourself. You know, it's really crazy to me how so many of us don't believe in ourselves, right? And it's crazy because here's the thing, there's like, what, 8 point something billion people on the planet. There isn't a single person that's alive that is actually exactly like you, or who is being born is going to ever be like you. Every single one of you actually have unique gifts, talents. So why on earth Are we not believing in ourselves? Why on earth are we not believing like we're like the bomb.com? Like, I don't get it. Why? You guys are at Penn State. Do you know how many people who applied and didn't get in here, right? You've got to believe in yourself, right? Here's the thing. One of my favorite quotes that I wish I would have known from a freaking baby, it is by Henry Ford, where he said, Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. And when I first, when I was writing my book is when I actually came across this quote and I was like, whoa, this changes everything. And here's the thing, it's right 100% of the time. And here's the thing, and I know a lot of us think, you know, when we're looking at our dreams and what we want and want to create for ourselves, we're thinking that it has to be us. And so sometimes I get that. That may waver your belief a little bit, but here's the thing, you don't have to do it on your own. You can have resources, you can have people actually help you, you can have collaborators, right? You guys have group projects, right? So you don't have to do it on your own, you can just, just believe in what your vision is and what you actually want, it can actually happen. Because here's the thing, in order for your dreams to actually come true, for you to create them, you have to believe in them. And if you don't believe in them, who's going to believe in them for you? It's your responsibility, right? And like I said earlier, your dreams are not by coincidence, right? This is another one of my favorite quotes by Rumi. Anybody never heard this quote before? What you seek is seeking you. It's inside you for a reason. It's meant for you to actually manifest. So those things that you want Don't ignore them, right? And even if you don't know how to actually create it for yourself, follow your curiosity, the things you're interested in, the things that actually calls your attention. Because the more you start to follow those nudges, you know, you saw what I did. I got the signs, I went to Paris to see, I went on a reconnaissance trip, right? And then I ended up moving. It's there for you to actually manifest just trust it. If it's there, it's meant for you to actually have it. And you gotta trust. A lot of us are wanting to create these incredible things for ourselves, but we don't have any trust. You gotta trust. You gotta have staying power. What is trust? Is the ability to believe in the inevitability. Listen, as long as you're waking up every single moment or every single morning, it's in your success is actually inevitable, right? As long as you're taking action towards it, you're being the person, you're thinking about it, you're taking whatever actions you want to take, it is inevitable it's going to happen. Now I know sometimes when things are taking a lot longer, we tend to actually lose our trust. Let me tell you something, sometimes when that is actually happening, first of all, know this, it's always working. Whatever you're doing, it is always working, even when it feels like, when it seems like there's an apparent failure. Because here's what's happening: sometimes the things that you want, you're not ready to actually have it. You're not mature enough to actually have it. Anybody know the stories about lottery winners and what happens in like 2 or 3 years down the line? Exactly. Why? Because they don't have the wealth consciousness to withhold the actual— well, I work as an attorney with a lot of entrepreneurs and startups, right? And a lot of them are like heart-centered. They want to save the world. They want to, they want to help a million people. But then when I talk to them, they don't have a single contract. They're making it from their own. They're getting it from AI or a bot. They don't have a trademark. They don't have anything registered as a copyright. If they were to get sued, they would be out. If they even— if even if they got like a chargeback from one of their clients, it would take them out. And I'm like, you think you want to help a million people? I go, do you really think the universe is going to give you a million clients right now? You don't have a single contract? No, because you're not mature enough to actually have it. So when you're feeling like it's never going to happen, you got to trust the process, right? I didn't just wake up and become a speaker. This This is 7 years in the making. I had to train for it. I had to wait for it. I did a TEDx before. You know what? I applied and I was denied twice. Then I got it, right? So trust the process. And then you also have got to have faith. Faith and trust go hand in hand. Faith is actually trusting and believing in the absence of physical evidence when it looks like it's not working. And what I love about faith is that you don't even need to have a lot of faith, just a little bit. Exactly. You know, I gotta be careful because like, you know, Bible and God, and when you speak, you can't offend people, right? But thank you, that's exactly what I was thinking. Is anybody seen a mustard seed before? If you haven't, literally go to the store and, and look and see how Tiny it is. It's literally all you need just to hold on a bit, right? And honestly, it's actually coming. And I want to say something to you. A lot of times it's like, you know, when I want to get back to like when you see people having what you want, you think it's never going to happen for you and you're comparing to other people. Understand something. What you're doing is you're comparing yourself from where you are to someone else. Like, for example, right, let's just say you want to be one of Speaker 2, I got 7 years on you. I'm a door number 85, you're door number 16. You can't compare, right? And when you compare, you're gonna feel like— you're gonna feel like defeated about yourself, right? So just trust and have faith. Your time is coming, is on its way. It's always another way, and it's always working. And then here's the thing: you've got to have self-confidence. You got to believe in yourself, right? What is self-confidence? Anybody want to tell me? What's self-confidence? Yes. Yes. You know, I hate this because so many people, we just believe we're not good enough. Like, who decided that, right? Who decided you're not good enough? And compared to who? Every last one of you in here have everything equipped right now in order to do what you want, to succeed at what you want, right? You've got to believe in yourself. Your inner confidence about yourself and your ability to actually do the things you want to do will far exceed your hard skills, right? There's a study that says that typically in a corporation, Men will see a job position and will apply for that position knowing good and well they don't have any of the skills, but they're just confident about it, right? They're just naturally confident. Women, on the other hand, will have 7,500 degrees, certifications, and still think they need to get another degree and won't apply. That's self-confidence. That's part of the inequality that's happening in corporations, right? You've got to believe in yourself, right? And I'm going to tell you, if you don't believe in yourself right now, how do you develop the confidence? It's simple, 3 words: "Yes, I can." "I'm capable." You have got to start telling yourself these things every single day because I get it. You know what, we weren't all born to enlightened parents, right? And our parents will actually come with the manual telling us, hey, this is how you raise like a really good child. And so some of these things we have to learn as an adult. You got to start telling yourself you can do things, that you're good enough, that you're smart enough, right? I mean, look at you guys. You all guys, you guys got in here. And here's the thing, you've been succeeding your whole life. I mean, look at the whole story of creation, right? How a sperm, conception, right? Trillions of sperm. What makes it? It's you. You're here. You're already successful. But for some reason, we don't think we are. We don't have any confidence about that, right? And here's the thing. Not only you made it through conception, you made it through your mom's birth canal, right? Or the stomach if you were born by C-section, right? Then you learn how to walk. You learn how to crawl. You learn how to ride a bike, to write your ABCs. Succeeds. You've been succeeding your whole life. How on earth can you not believe in yourself? How on earth can you not have self-confidence? You're at a top institution. You know, the girl who did my makeup, she's an 18-year-old, and I told her I was coming here to speak. She wants to come here, but she doesn't think she can actually get in. Why? I don't know. No, of course you can. And one of the reasons though why we don't have very great, uh, self-confidence, because we have very negative self-images of ourselves, right? It's how we see ourselves. And this is huge. The way you actually see yourself determines everything in your life, right? If you see yourself as a nobody, if you see yourself as someone doesn't you don't really matter, you can't do anything, guess what? Life will actually present to you evidence of that, right? It's not serving you to be telling yourself you're not good enough or to not be seeing yourself in a very positive light. Y'all are amazing. I don't need to tell you that. How many students do you go to this school? About 5,000. 5,000. Yeah. Compared to how many apply, they actually get in here? But I'm sure it's like triple that, right? You've got to start— you got to start seeing yourself in your true being and not this like limited being who can't do this, you can't do that. And stop comparing yourself to other people and see yourself in a different light. You've been succeeding your whole life. You don't need to wait until you get to say become this and become whatever you want to see yourself actually as this as a success, right? And then the next piece, like, you've got to have a growth mindset, right? Meaning you've got to have a mindset that's about your attitude with which a person faces challenges, how they process failures, and how they actually adapt and evolve as a result. I'm going to tell you something, life is not easy all the time, right? You got to be willing to be uncomfortable. You got to understand that, you know what, you can't go through life thinking everything's going to be the way you actually want you want it. You know, when I was in Paris the first couple years, I was like knee-deep in survival mode, but I couldn't call my friends and be like, oh my God, I'm so lonely, I don't have any friends here, because they're all like, are you kidding me? You're in freaking Paris, Eiffel Tower. They all thought I was just drinking champagne and eating croissants the whole time, right? And I'm like, I don't speak any French, you know? It was just— it was such a difficult time for me, right? But nobody actually wanted to hear it. But I understood. And when I got to Paris, I lost all of my business. I have my law firm, all my clients disappeared, and I had to go this whole money thing. And I, I, and I was like, oh my God. And I was losing great clients. These were like publicly traded companies. Like, one of my clients, y'all, literally like this thing was like put money in my bank account and I wouldn't even know about it. And the CEO would actually write me like, hey Wani Iris Manly, I need this legal opinion. John split the money account, it's not enough, ask him for more. Like that, I lost them, right? But what I was being taught is that I was being set up. Because here's what I realized when I got to Paris: I didn't go to Paris to continue my old life as a lawyer. I went there to do this. And I was actually going to create more wealth and more abundance for myself, but I had to let go or restructure my legal practice, right? And so sometimes things are actually happening is to grow you into being, to become. So you got to have a growth mindset and not be beating yourself up. Let's talk about success. You know, the reason why I have to start it off about my story— again, this wasn't about me— is to tell you, you have got to define what success means for you. Because here's the thing, life is telling you what success actually is, and And everyone's after chasing the same version of success, and it's not their own, right? Everyone's saying success is be rich, right? Get married, go to school, get married. I'm sorry, get an education, get a job, work for 50 years, retire, get married, white picket fence, 2.5 kids, a dog. I mean, God forbid if you're a woman, you're 40, and you're single, it's like a disease. Right? Like, people are forgetting, like, people actually have a choice. So you have got to decide what success means for you. I'm living my version of success. I'm living between— I have my life. I live in Paris in the summer, live in the French Riviera. That's my version of success. But somebody else, I know, feels stable. I don't care. I've been in New Mexico for the whole month of March, right? So you have to determine what your success actually looks at, because life will always be telling you it's not it. You know what we have right now? We have a whole population that's suffering from mental illness. We have a whole population suffering from mass psychosis, right? It's true. You know, one of my friends said to me, Wani, you know, you are the happiest lawyer I've ever met in my life. And I said, what do you mean? Because her sister lives in New York, she's in Paris, and she said, "You know all the yoga teachers, you know who they are?" And I go, "No." And he goes, "They're retired lawyers." They were miserable, right? And they're all now— they were all working for big law firms, you know, these big law firms making like a lot of money, but they were miserable. They all had health issues. But they could never tell their parents, "Hey, I want to be a yoga instructor. I want to go to India." but they're so much more happy, right? And so it's so important for you to be living your version of success, and more importantly, as you— and now for us, especially here in America, a lot of this material, right? You've got to have this. This is the most important thing. You got to have the feeling of satisfaction, of pride, of joy, and of love. Because, you know, Tony Robbins— anybody know who Tony Robbins is? Yes? I love him. Tony says, and it's so true, he says, "Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure." And it's true. And here's the thing, you don't need to have X, Y, and Z, become a millionaire to actually feel free or to feel love or to feel happy. You can have those things like right now, right? In fact, the whole money thing, which we're going to talk about in a second, one of the reasons why we all want a lot of money is because we want to feel, we want to have freedom, right? But you feel free right now. Anybody got a driver's license in here? Anybody have a car? Do you remember when you got your driver's license how you felt, right? You know, right? You felt free, right? Yes. Let me tell you, I went to— I picked university. I went to UT Austin to get away from my mother because she was so strict. I feel so free because I'm like, I have a South African mother, right? I went to YouTube to get a bit of freedom, you know. Every time I don't drive because in Paris, like, you don't get a car. But it's like, yeah, I can feel free anytime, right? You can feel love right now. You can feel proud right now, right? Because I'm telling you, the things that you want, that you want to have, the material things, is to feel those things. And I'm gonna tell you, if you don't feel those things now, when you actually get the success in a probably feel elusive to you, and if you do achieve it, it'll feel fleeting. You won't like it. It won't last, right? So remember, it's all about the emotional part. And as I told you already, you're already a success. You've been succeeding your whole life. Don't discount that, right? And let's talk about the whole money, because, you know, we're in North America here, and for us, we're such— we're all about money here. You know, Europe so much different. They're about actual living, but here it's all about the money for us, right? And I get it, I like nice things as well too, right? Because hey, my lifestyle costs a lot of money. But here's the thing though, what we do here though is we attach ourselves to the money. We think we're our bank balances, we think like we're the bank accounts, and you're not. And here's the thing, as long as you think you are your bank balance, you will always feel like crap. When you don't have enough money, you will feel low about yourself, you won't feel good enough. And if you have a lot of money and you start spending it, what you'll find yourself having is that you start feeling bad and feeling guilty because other people don't actually have it. So detach yourself from your actual bank account. And my time is up here with you, and if you know what, if you haven't heard anything from me in the last hour, I want you to hear this. No matter what you're doing as you pursue your dreams, dreams, to be a leader for success. I want you to keep the main thing the main thing. What is the main thing? It's happiness. You're here to be happy, point blank. You deserve to be happy right now, not because— not when you become X, Y, and Z. Like, no, you sitting in the chair